Repercussions From Bachmann's Tea Party Speech
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is making headlines across the country for doing something unprecedented. Her decision to have her own response to the State of the Union has a lot of people speculating about divisions within the Republican Party.
Bachmann delivered her response after the official Republican response by Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Republicans both in Minnesota and across the country are reluctant to criticize her. Speaker of the House John Boehner said simply he did not watch her speech. Republican Party leaders in Minnesota did not return WCCO's requests for an interview.
"Michele Bachmann's speech last night signals the significant and deep divisions within the Republican Party in Washington," said Professor Larry Jacobs of the Humphrey Institute.
The speech comes a week after Bachmann's first visit to Iowa since announcing she may run for president. It also comes after the Republican leadership in the House denied Bachmann's attempt for a leadership position in the new Congress.
"This may well be the first chapter in the Michele Bachmann campaign not only against Democrats but also against Republicans in Washington who are not responding to Tea Party conservatives around the country," said Jacobs.
And to her followers, Bachmann said again what she did Tuesday night -- that she will continue fighting for her beliefs.
"I believe that we're in the very early days of a history making turn in America," she said in her speech.
One wrinkle for Bachmann in her Tea Party speech was that many people have remarked about her looking slightly off camera. Bachmann was looking at the Tea Party web camera. The pool camera, staffed by CNN, that captured her for television was slightly to the side.
